Artist in Residence Artist Talk: Melodie Reay (Baton Rouge)

Melodie Reay’s work stems from the word “record.” When broken down into its two constituents—"re,” a prefix indicating repetition or backward motion, and “cord” from Latin cordis, meaning “heart”—the word “record” simply means “return to the heart.” She is interested in ideas of documentation, preservation and control of the less tangible aspects of our experience—namely, our emotions. She makes and unmakes documents as a way to process and give testament to negligible inner turmoil. While much of her past work has explored these ideas in clay, her time at MAWA will be an opportunity to focus on writing. She will be researching and writing for an ongoing project considering notions of self-esteem.